O Come, All Ye Faithful?

With November being right around the corner, many Dioceses and Parishes are turning their attention to the upcoming holidays. Coupled with what seems to be a resurgence in the Coronavirus in most of the world, I think it is quite important for all of us to ask now, after over half a year of this pandemic: what is our status?

Especially as the debate continues to rage on regarding the proper and proportionate response to the virus, individual parishes are not emerging immune from controversy. In some places, there are sometimes bitter and contentious discussions regarding social distancing and mask protocols during Mass and other public liturgies. People feel very strongly about these issues, especially if they have a vulnerable loved one. I find fascinating what a microcosm our parishes are of a national, even international, debate.

In my opinion, the great divide is primarily psychological. On the one hand, there are a great number of people who embrace what I would call a maximal risk mitigation approach to the virus and to life in general. These are people who I believe are naturally risk adverse and cautious. They tend to be conscientious and community oriented, and so they primarily ask questions of social or collective responsibility. On the other hand, there is at least an equal number of people who follow what I would call a fear mitigation approach. These people do not deny the virus or other problems, but they do question the efficacy of mitigation protocols and the advice of society’s “experts”. They tend to be independent, non-conformist and focused on individual responsibility and virtue. Both mentalities I believe undergird how people interpret “the science” and the ever-changing advice of the CDC, the WHO, and the government. 

When COVID-19 emerged from China last spring, none of us knew what we were dealing with. We did not know, and neither did our doctors and politicians, despite their assertions to the contrary. The default stance of every institution in the 21st century, especially where the native society is litigious, is toward risk mitigation and management: it’s the reason we throw out millions of tons of perfectly good food, for instance. In the off-chance that someone may get food poisoning and sue, we have chosen to take the most cautious approach. It’s also why we discard people, when they become inconvenient. Weak, fallen people are too complicated and dangerous for the high priests of risk management. Through AI and Robotics especially, these people feel that we can remove the uncertainties that human frailty generate. Governments have become increasingly technocratic, revolving around the opinions of “experts”, who are just as prone to logical fallacies and moral weaknesses as we are. But these are the people who largely at the helm of the managerial caste. And they demand almost absolute conformity to their advice.

One problem among many with the near-absolute hegemony of the risk management paradigm in regard to crises and human weaknesses is that it almost irresistibly auto-generates new rules and regulations. As G.K. Chesterton once famously remarked, the abolition of the Golden Rule does not create a society with no rules, but with many, many little ones. The risk management approach may not be as heavy-handed an approach to influencing human behavior as say, totalitarianism or communism, but its internal logic is the same, as a form of coercive behavioralism. In the name of protecting human lives and institutions, an uncorrected, unbalanced risk management paradigm almost always ends up dehumanizing the human person. I don’t think anyone would say we should never manage risk or reduce the probability of bad things happening. But I think it is undeniable to note that where people try to abolish human frailty, they end up abolishing the possibility of actual grace. As I have said before, risk management taken too far also tends to make a society, institution or individual extremely fragile. Moral life, like biological life, seems to require in this world, as a condition of its flourishing, struggle and the possibility of loss.

Among the number of the faithful still going to Mass and receiving the Sacraments during this time, I believe it is true that the vast majority are not in thrall to the mentality of risk management. They would operate more out of the ‘fear management’ mentality mentioned earlier. Most care about the most vulnerable, but they know that to live is to risk, and sometimes risk much. These are the people I argue that entered the “closed” Churches in order to attend the Priest’s unannounced Mass, in order to worship God and receive Holy Communion. They are also the core of those who returned to Sunday Mass as soon as possible. In most places, attendance at Sunday Mass is still a fraction of what it once was. However, those that are left, are most definitely ‘true believers’. 

Returning to the subject of the holidays, many dioceses and parishes have begun to strategize for a Christmas in accord with social distancing and other health protocols. There are lively debates about whether to add Masses or to subtract them. Some say that we need more Masses to provide adequate room for social distancing. I argue the opposite. I believe that those who would attend Christmas Masses outside of the number of those who regularly attend Sunday Mass (so called C&E Christians) will almost certainly not attend Christmas Mass this year. In addition to their own casual irreligion and regular neglect of the Third Commandment, these individuals simply do not see the true value of the Mass, whether on Christmas Day or any day, so why would they suddenly manifest such a drastic change of behavior? The pandemic in much of the West has truly dehabituated Sunday Mass attendance from those who were just going out of habit. Why go to Mass for a mere piece of bread, when I can get my religion online, or anywhere else? To the believer, Mass and the Holy Eucharist are so precious, so important, that only a serious moral or physical impediment would stop us from going to them. The numbers we will lose, and have lost, from the practical abandonment of the practice of public worship will more than provide for adequate social distancing when Christmas arrives. Christmas may very well be the truest bellwether of the spiritual health of our people. For all intents and purposes, I believe it will be our best and most revealing census.

But this has not stopped many dioceses from publishing multi-page directives on how to ‘do Christmas’, as if the people, after being told for most of 2020 that the obligation to attend Mass is waived, will spontaneously recover their former religiosity if we can somehow make a critical mass of the people ‘comfortable’ with returning. But there is no vaccine for fear. The Bishops unfortunately have largely been supine in relation to the state, and are probably the most risk-adverse members of the Church, both because of their average age, and the bureaucratization of their Office. This has not gone unnoticed by the faithful. As I wrote back in my March essay, Prudence in a Panic, the near-universal suspension of the obligation to attend Sunday Mass should have been immediately followed by strenuous efforts to catechize and instruct the faithful on the virtue of religion and the meaning of the Third Commandment. Also, the obligation should not have been suspended at all, but commuted, as Canon Law permits in special cases, perhaps even being joined to another act of worship outside of Mass. The purpose of this would be to remind the faithful that the worship of the Trinity is not optional, but essential, to the Christian. Therefore it cannot be abandoned with a concomitant loss of our identity and spiritual health.

The fact remains that even very good Catholics do not know that the Church has the power to bind and loose the conscience in God’s name. Many Priests I know have heard their people express confusion at how the Church could “cancel” the Third Commandment. We have not done a good enough job explaining how God does not command us to impossibilities, and how even Christ taught us that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 

I think that in spite of consistently proportionally low hospitalization and death rates, the spike in the infection rate may push some states into a renewed lockdown, much like is already happening again in France and other parts of Europe. What I think should be very interesting is how the risk management and fear management paradigms will once again clash in the public forum, especially if the economic misery caused by these lockdowns becomes more widespread. 

To end on a positive note, I believe this year especially that the Liturgical Calendar provides very important opportunities to speak of a few crucial realities. In a few days time, we commemorate the realities of death, judgment, heaven and hell on All Saints Day and All Souls Day. It is an excellent time to instruct and encourage people in Catholic belief in the afterlife, and the inevitability of death: therefore we need not live in constant fear and dread, but in hope and fidelity. Also, with the celebration of the Birth of our Incarnate Lord, we have another excellent opportunity to speak about the importance of embodiment and our physicality. Our Lord did not visit us from heaven via a Zoom Call, but in flesh and blood. Such a realization is a necessary corrective to the over-virtualization of our world, especially for young, developing minds. The Church, too, is an embodied reality, and requires our physical involvement.

As always, let us pray for a speedy end to the pandemic, for those who are sick or in harm’s way, and for those who have died. But above all, let us never forget to pray and live in such a way so that the second death will do us no harm.